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Apple, Alphabet Drop In Annual Survey

In an annual survey of the reputations of the “most visible” corporate brands, Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc,’sGoogle fell from the top 10 to No. 29 and No. 28 spots, respectively. Tesla, however, climbed from the No. 9 spot to the No. 3 spot, and Amazon took the lead for the third straight year, Reuters reported.

The reason behind Apple and Alphabet’s fall in the Harris Poll Reputation Quotient survey may have had to do with their lack of product releases, which tend to garner attention. In past years, for example, Google unveiled Google Docs and Apple rolled out the iPhone and the iPad.

“Google and Apple, at this moment, are sort of in valleys,” John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll, told Reuters. “We’re not quite to self-driving cars yet. We’re not yet seeing all the things in artificial intelligence they’re going to do.”

The poll was based on a survey of 25,800 U.S. adults and was conducted from Dec. 11, 2017, to Jan. 12, 2018. Since 1999, the survey has ranked the reputations of “the most visible” brands.

The news comes as Apple may not sell as many iPhone X models as was previously expected, despite the hype over its new, high-end phones. In January, KGI Securities Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reduced his lifetime sales forecast for the new iPhone X from 80 million to 62 million phones. He also believes Apple will stop producing the premium model of the iPhone in 2018.

Meanwhile, Tesla is gearing up for more innovations: Its Model 3 will soon be able to handle voice control capabilities, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed on Twitter in response to a question from a customer. Additionally, Tesla Motors is diversifying its business with car rentals of its luxury electric car at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Indiana, industry news source Chain Store Age has reported.